GLP-1 Medications for Weight Loss: A 42-Year Fitness Professional’s Honest Take

Okay, this episode is bound to either be popular for a positive or for a negative reason. I am going to probably appear at the end of this to have played on both sides of the fence, but that's not my intention. I'm going to give you a very straightforward response to my opinion today as we do this live. It is March 2026. In March of 2025, and it feels like longer ago than that, I was on a panel at a then-named fitness association that has been a very credible source of authority for decades, URSA. It has since been changed. In fact, they announced it at this meeting to Health Fitness Association. I mean, it couldn't be more basic, but it's so very obvious. So they changed it. And yet on this panel, I sat as the fitness expert with fitness experience on the panel with doctors of longevity, MDs in practice, and the panelist, mediator, moderator. And we talked about, to a room full of health and fitness professionals, primarily fitness, and, you know, talked about the pros and the cons of it and what it meant for them. And I will weave a little bit of that into that story, but I will let you know right now, the plans are to release a part 2 of this episode dedicated to specifically what health and fitness professionals need to know. And you too, as a consumer interested in fitness and health benefits for herself, may want to listen to that one. So I just want you to know that that is coming, and one to share potentially with your health or fitness professional, because they're not going away. And I think we all have to take a hot moment and realize that that is the case. GLP medications are everywhere. Some call them a miracle, some call them cheating, some call them dangerous. And after 42 years as a fitness professional, here's what I see: real metabolic benefits, real muscle loss risk, real psychological shifts, and real misuse. And I'm gonna unpack it all. So this isn't an episode of hype and it's not one of fearmongering either. If you are still weighing in, and I know many of you are because you're asking behind the scenes what my thoughts are about them and getting to me through DMs on Instagram or other places where you're asking, this is really what I've seen and what the science says. So it is both. And, and I share that with you because when you seek recommendations or advice, most of us do go to, I wanna go to somebody who's done that before. Right now it's very interesting. So literally I just came back a couple of hours ago from 4 days in paradise, which means across town for which I had to board my own dog where I stayed with my son while his wife was out of town to help him manage a 6-month-old basically on his own and 2 dogs. And he had a day where he absolutely had to be in the office and didn't have an option. Second day was optional. He had a little more flexibility, but he chose to be there. And it was nice that he, you know, had somebody at home. So I can be a little bit more flexible. I had work done in advance. I was available to my team. Between bottles and diaper changes, you know, and there is no, you know, you envision, "Well, they nap, I'll nap," 'cause you've gotten wiser in the last 30 years. Yeah, well, that flies out the window just like it did 30 years ago. But, you know, it was very fun for me to hear, and this was through my son, not through my daughter-in-law, but he was saying, "Yeah, you know, we've got a couple friends and I was asking at work 'cause we decided," well, Let me just rephrase. My son decided that we were gonna do crib training while his wife was away. Here I envisioned all of these contact naps where I would improve my oxytocin by having a 6-month-old that I love more than anyone in the world lie on my chest and sleep. And my son was like, came home the first day, he's like, no more contact naps. I'm like, oh. Okay, really? But he was like, yeah, we're going to do crib training because I think he had like a rough night and the night before mom left. And so I'm sure he was thinking, what is this going to be like for these next 3 nights? So we did crib training where he had a little help. And yet what the fun was, he would say, well, here's— I talked to one of my coworkers who's got like a 2.5-year-old and, you know, We were talking to our friends about what they did and how they did it. And this, they have a course, they've taken this class. And so they let me use their password and username. And don't get any ideas, by the way, you members. But they're like, it's just so fun that they're leaning on each other, you know? And while both moms were on their way back home, there's about 6 women who left on flights from the same town, good friends in high school or college or both and beyond. And they all flew down there together. But a couple of them have young children whose dads then were at home managing. My son, with a little help from me, and others, you know, a little more solo. So they had to get through it, but they were there congratulating each other on the phones, like, hey, we almost made it. Like, they're on the flight, last leg home. And they were, you know, sharing. And I find that so interesting. But I digress. And the reason is It's what we do too. You ask me, you know, what have I seen? Because I've worked with hundreds and thousands of students and clients at this point who have flirted with GLPs, who have done Ozempic or semaglutide. They have done one of them full force and/or it's worked or not worked. So of course you would go and ask. And I think this is what we do as women. I, I find women do this more than men, but it was such a refreshing thing for me to to learn that no, actually, our millennials or, or Gen Xs are doing this too. So super fun. But I am sharing what I know and I've seen. GLP-1 receptor agonists, including medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, were originally developed for diabetes management. They've been around for a very long time. It has only been in the last 3 to 5 years they've become more mainstream and When you say that, it's going to trigger a lot of people. So if you're triggered, maybe you don't want to listen to this one, but maybe when you're ready, listening to this may help fill in some gaps on maybe thoughts and beliefs that are or are not true. So now they are widely prescribed for weight loss. And as a fitness professional working primarily with women in midlife and beyond, my lens is simple. Asking these questions: is it improving health? Is it preserving muscle? Because that is a risk and a widely published one. Is it sustainable? Is it aligned with long-term vitality? And really, so what we're talking about is longevity. And as we know, in longevity, it's not just living longer. We want to live stronger. And I think more of us would say, Actually, that's what I do want, whether it's longer or not, I don't care. I mean, my own mother lived till 95 with all faculties present. I mean, a little forgetful, yes. Still liked to drive too fast, yes. But, you know, she was able to do most anything. She began to, you know, not travel within the last 3 years, maybe had declined and said no. I'm not going to do that. As much as we tried to persuade her, it was still a no. But I want to make sure that we're aligning with what your goals are if you're still contemplating or have done it. And I want you to know you're not alone if you've done, tried, or no longer doing it. I'm breaking this into two clear sections. First, what I like about it, and second, what I don't like about it. Said nicely, what concerns me. And I'm gonna back it with science every step of the way. So first of all, what I like about it. Number one is the reduction in inflammation. And as you well know, we've talked about inflammation in so many ways and terms, whether it's inflammation that affects our brain, inflammation that affects our systemic system and is often responsible for belly fat or, weight loss resistance, meaning you're trying everything and seemingly truly trying things, not the just that you believe and learned when you were 30 or that worked then, but that would or should work now. And that is a very distinct thing I just said. If you believe, "Well, I'm eating less and I am exercising more and I haven't lost weight," absolutely, you won't. Period, end of story. And if you do, you will be losing muscle, hurting yourself, slowing your metabolism long-term, and it will be worse metabolically when you're done. This is actually one of the reasons we're talking about GLBs. But what I mean is if you have learned, "I'm actually going to nurture my body. I'm going to work hard exercise-wise when I do resistance training." And that doesn't mean it's going to hurt or cause muscle soreness, by the way. And I'm going to get breathless and I'm going to go for walks. And I might not do that all at first, but I'm going to eventually. And I'm going to recover just as hard. I'm going to rest and do active recovery movement that isn't hard on my alternate days from those challenging workouts. And challenging means they're shorter. They're more efficient and effective at doing the right thing. Volume alone, just more and longer and harder, all of that might just backfire. But if you truly have turned the corner on your knowledge base, you know truly now what works, and it's not just more for more's sake. It's not just, "Oh, I should go to the gym today." Actually, the question should be, "Should you?" Maybe not. Maybe you should go for a walk today. But if you truly have turned the corner and you can say, "I've tried everything," then you may want to take a look at inflammation as being a part of your problem. So there's a 68-week step 1 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2021. So remember where we were, kind of a year into pandemic. Adults with obesity taking semaglutide experience significant weight loss, reductions in CRP, that's your C-reactive protein. And by now I'm guessing you know what that is because we've talked inflammation so many times. It is on your regular blood panel that your doctor will run annually. And it's generally there if you are getting a regular blood test because you're working on hormone levels, for instance, you may be testing that more frequently. But that is a marker of systemic inflammation. In a randomized placebo-controlled trial— that's all good stuff, by the way— researchers observed not only substantial weight reduction but improvements in inflammatory markers associated with cardiometabolic disease. Inflammation drives cardiovascular risk, insulin resistance, which, by the way, leads to belly fat, joint pain, and just overall fatigue. Reducing inflammation is not cosmetic, it's clinical. Your metabolic health really depends on it. So that's valid and I love it. Number 2, what I love about it, cardiovascular risk reduction. The SELECT trial, that's the name of the trial, In 2023, in the Journal of Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, studied over 17,000 adults with overweight or obesity and established cardiovascular risk disease. So all of them had it already. The result was 20% reduction in major adverse cardiovascular events in the semaglutide group. That is significant. This isn't about fitting into jeans. Alone. Maybe that's a side benefit. It's about heart attacks and strokes and that wide umbrella that is cardiovascular disease. The third thing I like about it is the improved insulin sensitivity. So as you know, again, this kind of goes back to inflammation. They're very tied. But the STEP trials also demonstrated reduced A1C levels, improved fasting glucose levels, and improved markers of insulin resistance. So that directly contributes to belly fat. Visceral belly fat is very tied to insulin sensitivity. Women going through menopause kind of hitting that whatever critical mass is and when that occurs for you. Could be perimenopause, it could be just right at menopause transition, but generally women will experience something like that and could happen later for you, up to 3 to 5 years post-menopause because of the critical loss of hormone levels. Post-menopausal women, insulin resistance also often increases due to estrogen decline. When blood sugar regulation improves, energy also improves. So number 4, I like the reduction in food noise. Most women on a GLP will experience this. In appetite-focused studies, and there was one done earlier actually than the others, In 2017, participants report lower hunger scores. So that ghrelin, that is your hunger hormone, kind of gets tamed a little bit. The increased satiety feeling. You know, so you feel full longer. There isn't that urge or that need to, huh, you know, I could eat again. You're not distracted by that. And reduced cravings for high-fat foods. In fact, you know, a lot of times it's very hard to eat fat or too much. For some women, this is really life-changing, and this is the key. I've seen women who felt out of control around food all their lives. They finally experience kind of quiet in their mind space to make decisions and think about what they were going to eat and motivation to start strength training because all the rest of this noise was not there. And motivation seems to be a little, I think, elusive. But a lot of people report, "I finally have the motivation to do this or to care about what I'm eating and cooking or to do the exercise again." I came back from a 10-mile hike, one that I do frequently, but something was different. My knee was a little swollen, took a few days to feel really better, but it wasn't the 100% that I'd always known before. That was the first time I thought, is this it? Like, is this when it starts right now? You know, that really made me do a double take on what I'd taken for granted. But it turns out the secret to healing, recovery, and resilience isn't just luck or genetics, even a good training program. It's stem cells. They're your body's built-in repair crew. But as we age, that system slows down. Fewer cells, weaker signals, slower recovery. That is exactly why Qualia Stem Cell was created. Our cells are powerful. We can make sure they stay that way with Qualia's innovative stem cell formula. If you think of stem cells as your body's own internal repair crew and Qualia Stem Cell as something that helps them do their job better. One thing I love about it, you don't have to accept slowing down for one, or thinking this is a slippery slope, but only down. And I also love that you only need to take this 4 days a month, preserving your body's regenerative capacity over time. So if you've ever felt like your body just doesn't bounce back like it used to, or after a tough workout it's not feeling the same, or after getting sick it's hard to bounce back, maybe it's just the wear and tear of daily life for you. This is for you. Qualia Stem Cell was designed to support your body's natural repair systems, helping you heal, recover, and keep going strong. And right now you can try it for up to 50% off at qualialife.com/flipping. And here's a bonus: use the code FLIPPING for an additional 15% off your order. That's Q-U-A-L-I-A liife.com/flipping. Your body's built to repair itself. Qualia just helps you do it better. And a big thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. So let's look at part 2, what concerns me. And let me just do a quick recap on these 4 things that I like, and there may be more, but 1, a reduction in inflammation. Cardiovascular risk reduction, improved insulin sensitivity, and reduction in food noise. And of the 4, 3 of them really stand out as like immediate gratification for the women I work with. And I, I find no fault in this, but women don't come to me and say, "I really want to reduce my cardiovascular risk." You don't, right? We come because I really don't feel good in my own skin. I don't like walking into my closet because none of the clothes that I stare at, the beautiful clothes I have, none of them fit me. And, you know, you've had your colors done and they're all in your color and it doesn't work anymore, you know, or whatever it may be. So the cardiovascular risk is life-saving, right? However, it's not the reason, the immediate gratification And yet the heart risk reduction will come after the other 3 kick in because you're able to do or to stop doing things that kind of really come into play with it. Okay, so what concerns me? Number 1, lean mass loss. And this was the talk and the concern before kind of the masses got on it, is still the concern. Here today. In a body composition substudy of the STEP 1 trial previously mentioned in this episode, we'll note all the citations, by the way, in the notes, approximately 39 to 40% of total weight lost was lean mass. So let that sink in. And here's on average with weight loss, we can reduce it to about 15, 1-5%, and there still may be a little. As much as we could control for it with doing resistance training, with eating high protein, managing sleep, you know, all of those things that help us lock in muscle protein synthesis, and then sleep that helps lock it in. But 39 to 40% being lean muscle mass, that's a lot. That's too much. It's costing us, and that will cost us metabolic health, strength, and bone density. So in women over 50 who are already losing muscle mass annually due to sarcopenia— and I, that is kind of a mouthful— so the sarcopenia is the muscle loss. Sarcopenia can happen naturally if you let it. The combination of How much over 30 are we when those losses start to kick in? How much did we strength train to muscle fatigue while we were in those years between 30 and now? And how much did we pay attention to the protein we needed between 30 and now? For a lot of women, that's— we can't check all boxes. We weren't necessarily doing them all. Some, yes. All, maybe. Few of the women that I've worked with had their eye on all of those. We were doing the opposite, eating low fat, you know, and, you know, lots of fruit. And so we weren't focused on what we really needed to do. So we need to watch our lean muscle mass because losing it reduces our metabolic rate, reduces strength, and it reduces our frailty risk.— or I'm sorry, increases our frailty risk. Whew, let's do that again. Reduces metabolic rate or metabolism, reduces our strength, and increases our frailty risk. If resistance training and protein intake are not prioritized, the metabolic benefit erodes, right? We're not going to get the rest. Let's say we reduce inflammation, but we lose all that muscle mass. We're still not coming out of that game ahead. We have to have muscle to survive. Weight loss is not automatically health gain. Let me say that again. Weight loss is not automatically health gain. And that is really important. Number 2 that I don't like about it, big concern, no mandated resistance training. You know, in major GLP-1 trials, participants were given calorie guidance and physical activity recommendations. But structured resistance training was not required or standardized. Muscle preservation was not the primary endpoint, and if muscle is not protected, metabolic rate will decline. That is physiology. Number 3, my concern: protein and micronutrient insufficiency. GLP medications reduce appetite. If intake drops dramatically and protein is not intentionally maintained, research on ongoing populations shows increased sarcopenic risk. And let's just define sarcopenia. That is significant muscle and strength loss. Fatigue. Most of the people who have been on GLPs for a long enough period of time feel some level of fatigue because they're not eating enough. And that means we're not taking in many micronutrients. Reduced muscle protein synthesis also occurs. Those three things—increased muscle loss and strength loss, sarcopenia, fatigue, and reduced muscle protein synthesis—bad combination. Older adults already demonstrate anabolic resistance, that is resistance to maintaining and gaining lean muscle mass. Lower intake compounds it. Lower protein intake, but also micronutrient intake, just lower overall intake will compound that anabolic resistance. I've seen women exhausted, not because the medication itself failed, because it actually did what it was supposed to do, but they were so appetite suppressed that they were underfueled. They're getting full fast. They don't need to eat. They don't think to eat. And that might be it right there. There is no talk going in, you know, like the talk about your parents, with your parents about sex. You know, I mean, you think a little bit more about it in the backseat when you've had that talk. But if you're on a GLP and you haven't had that talk with your physician, like enroll in a weight training program right now. Or, "I'm not prescribing this. When you keep coming back for checks, I'm going to ask if you're doing it." That should be part of the game, but it's not. It has to be part of yours if you're doing it, if you really truly want the health that you're setting out to get. Number 4, here's what concerns me, is it doesn't work for everyone. And I think that makes people for whom it doesn't work even more frustrated because you're seeing all these other people work and Not you. So again, in this step 4, the 2021 study, weight loss varied widely among participants. You know, we're only hearing and seeing about the, the Oprahs and the people for whom this is really working for. Some lost significant weight, some lost modest amounts, some were non-responders. And I've seen microdose to full doses, I've seen minimal change, I've seen no change and decreased appetite in somebody who already ate too little. Let me say that again. I've had clients overweight, but these clients are often, and maybe you who are listening, eat less than someone of normal weight or even more ideal weight and body composition. They have what I'd call leptin backfiring. Leptin is your fullness, your satiety hormone. A lot of times there is something called early satiety. You're getting full too fast and you, you can't finish. You're sitting down to dinner with people, they finish their plate or bowl and you're still eating, and then you want to bag it up and take it home because you're full. And that's a signal something is wrong. But I've had clients like that for whom their doctor prescribed a GLP-1 and the client didn't volunteer that, "Hey, I already have poor appetite. I already have a low appetite." I don't know if doctors just assume that anybody who is overweight must be overeating or if they have a conversation with them about how much, where's your daily caloric intake? You know, Because I've got clients who would, you know, be of a level based on their weight that probably to maintain that weight, they need 2,500 or 3,000 calories. And with exercise and activity level, then you take in even more if you're going to sustain. And I'm not saying that is the goal, but just for an example's sake. And yet they're eating, you know, maybe 1,800 calories. So that creates a very significant deficit. From what that body weight and size and activity level would justify to where they are now, there's something else wrong that needs to be looked at. The answer to that is not let's suppress appetite further so that you're not getting more, you're, or you're getting even less protein, you're getting even fewer micronutrients from foods does not seem to be the answer. And what I've seen in clients is either it not working, or it's expensive, it's fatiguing— literally, it's fatiguing them— and there's no metabolic improvement. So it's not a miracle drug for everybody, and there may be something else going on that clearly needs to happen before. You've heard guests on this show previously Dr. Yvonne Carney comes to mind talking about hormones. It's not just your hormones that have to be optimized if you're thinking hormone replacement or hormone therapy, but if your receptor sites where hormones sit like musical chairs need to be dusted off because the hormone actually can't get there to deliver the goods. That might be a problem. And maybe it's something similar with GLPs. There's a reason they're not working for everyone. And I am yet— I am but a strength and conditioning coach, a medical exercise specialist. I couldn't go into that biology that deep and know what that might be. But I think that is where there's still room for improvement in looking at Why doesn't it work for everybody? What could be the missing link? Now, spoiler alert, I gave you 4 for things I like about it. I have 6 for things I'm concerned about. Number 5 is cultural misuse and the aesthetic abuse. While most clinical candidates are appropriate, public culture is very different. We already know from body image research. That's been out there for a very long time. I'll mention a study in 2016: exposure to thin ideal imagery increases body dissatisfaction. I've shared very recently why looking at timelines on social media often leaves us not motivated by, by influencers or seeing somebody who is your age, but often it leaves you with maybe a I'm further behind than I thought feeling. And instead of motivating people to activity, it can backfire. So I cautioned you in a very recent podcast, if you find that's how you feel, you feel like, uh, you know, I missed time to work out today, so I'm a loser, and you feel worse, you know, that is not the goal. Stop following those people. Stop. And, you know, I think there are a lot of would-be expert, credible experts, but they're also showing themselves and their body and they're thin beyond means. They're really thin and very, very muscular. For potentially the average individual concerned about health, but who also has a really busy life, unable to sustain maybe those things. And I know that everyone out there will say, well, that just seems unreasonable. You must have a cook or a chef or somebody else doing the things that— you're not a regular working person. And so I think bottom line here, make sure that whoever you're following on social media, you feel good about. They leave you feeling, I can do that, I can do that. And I see they aren't always motivated to do it either, and it doesn't always get done perfectly. Either. But let's combine this rapid celebrity weight loss. We've seen it all, right? Extreme thinness. We've seen this. Are you watching Wicked clips? Social amplification of said celebs. And we're starting to see this twiggy-like bodies, like arms that you can see the bones in, like faces where there's no fat at all. So younger women seem to be victim of this as much as, as older women. Often women in their 20s and their 30s appear to be using these medications to chase thinness, not necessarily health. And these are the icons to teenage girls, young 20-somethings. And I love on the flip side, we've got more and more women thinking strong and being in the weight room, and I love that. But I think there is also going to be this flirting of the two diverging. So we're gonna see this over-exercising and under-eating, and that marriage doesn't work, and it has long-term ramifications. Someone once asked me, "Why, if you exercise, would you have low bone density?" And of course, it's far more complicated than that. But part of that also would be probably because as a young woman in her, you know, 19-year-old, 20, 21-year-old body, I was severely cutting calories and I was beginning to exercise a lot. And, you know, at a developmental stage in age, although I was strength training, you know, you have to wonder, was I putting in enough fuel? You know, or in grad school, was that just so much Diet Coke to keep me going? And, you know, We've all got moments in our lives where we were not doing the ideal, and some of them we can't even control. Some of you had children in rapid succession and you chose to breastfeed, and kudos to you, nothing wrong with that, but your body will leach the calcium from your body. Make sure that you're putting it all into the breast milk during pregnancy, actually, and during breastfeeding. So about 6 months after you complete breastfeeding, the body bounces back. It's very resilient. However, if you're one of those moms who has several young children, you know, under the age of 5 or 4, you didn't get that break potentially. So you had that rubbing and then maybe got pregnant again really quickly and had it happen again. And so you may never have gotten that catch-up that happens. So we've all got a history of that, but it becomes really important when we look at what might be happening to young developing women still in their teens or 20s and/or to those icons in movies and on the big screen or the little one these days who are people that our youth want to emulate, and they're skinny as all get-out. All right, number 6. This is the last one in my concerns. I'm sure it's probably not the last one I have ever, but this is the polarization in the fitness industry. This is a huge concern for me. I don't like the divide and I don't like the quick, "Here's—" I hate it. "These are dumb. This is terrible." You know, The fitness industry itself calls them cheating, and they were extremely offended and I think threatened when GLPs were coming out. And this was a year ago. Gosh, it might have been 2 years ago now. It's like time flies. But that is really, really, you know, a one-sided, you know, and fearmongering kind of way to take. It's lazy. It's a threat to trainers. That's kind of how the fitness industry saw them. I think it's still how some do see them. And I don't think— you can see I've got one foot on either side of the fence, right? It's how it's used. It's just like any exercise. Alone is not bad, but it's how it's done and who it's done for or with that really matters. Weight stigma research shows that bias in health professionals reduces trust and adherence. So if somebody uses a medical intervention appropriately, it doesn't eliminate the need for coaching. In fact, in GLP-1 medications, I believe it increases it. We need to make sure that muscle protein synthesis still is forefront and present for GLP-1 users. High diet of protein and micronutrient-rich foods. So we can't continue to eat a junk food diet. There's room for it, but not much, because if you have low diet, your appetite is suppressed. We've got to put the good stuff in first, and we need resistance training. And it's dead, telltale sign. If you're so exhausted you cannot exercise, something is not going well with your health. We can't be doing this for metabolic health and then be saying, "But I'm too tired to exercise." The two of those should not be in the same sentence. So there's got to be some kind of a monitoring of when is it enough, when is it too much? So the goal must remain health. And not thinness at any cost. The goal shouldn't be to lose 30 pounds, no matter what it is, even if it's significant muscle loss. So I will say what I would do if I were going on GLPs or if I were going to coach someone on GLP. And we include this in the GLP-1 Fitness Specialist course that is going to be offered as a CE You course. It'll be a standalone and available for, for anyone. So consumers could buy it just for consumption themselves. Health coaches and trainers can get it as well. Right now it's only offered as a bonus for the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist during March Madness spring training. So think about that if you want it. But this is really important. I would make sure I had a smart scale and I was using it every week. Smart scale being one that measures, yes, of course, weight, but body composition. You want to know what the composition of that weight is. How much is skeletal muscle mass? And not just, "Oh, muscle mass." No, skeletal muscle mass, not just fat-free mass, skeletal muscle mass. That's the third time. Do we have it now? And that in pounds or kilograms, not a percent. skeletal muscle mass in pounds or kilograms. Go to your scale right now if you have one. If it doesn't do that, the next time you have the opportunity to upgrade, make sure that's what you're getting. And I would not worry and fret if that scale in your bathroom is not perfectly calibrated. If you're wondering, "Is that really right? Is that really true? Is that really accurate?" I don't care, and you don't either. What you want to see is where is it right now? And then when I go on it, is it still there or is it going up? Never, ever, ever down. Now, the one thing that will impact it from time to time is your hydration level. So if you modify and monitor your hydration level and you're taking in electrolytes and you're really getting the water into your cells, it should be very similar. However, your variant bariatric pressure outside, the humidity, you sweat more because you're working out more, you have certain foods that make you— they act like a diuretic, or that they are making you retain water, your hydration level will change. And we hold water in the muscle. So when you're really well hydrated, your muscle mass, skeletal muscle, will show up as greater. And if you're not as well hydrated, it will show up as lesser. Now, from week to week, if it changes barely, minimum, not a big deal. What you're looking for is major trends. Is it trending down like 4 weeks in a row? Okay, let's pay attention to that. Then we need to look at what can we do. Do we need to recover more? Do we need to try to get more protein in? And/or do we need to sleep better? Because all those things will matter. So we want to focus on measuring and measuring skeletal muscle mass. It's the biggest concern. If we lose that, we are going to be worse off in our metabolic health than ever. And this, I think, heightens the whole conversation around muscle. And I want to say this, and I've said it before recently in episodes, if you are frustrated because you're trying to gain lean muscle mass and you're not, I want to remind you, if you're already pretty strong, you're already pretty healthy, and you are maybe seeing yourself gain some strength. You were picking up 20s last week and now it takes a 25 to do the exercise to fatigue. You are gaining strength and if you are not losing muscle mass, remember the opposite of the information that's shared so very frequently. You are not one of those losing 3 to 8% muscle every decade and/or up to 1% a year. That really doesn't kick in. In until your 50s, and then it's 1 to 2% every year after 60, on average. By the way, we're not average, you and me. No, no, no, no. We're not participating in that. We don't subscribe to that. We're way above average because we're exercising and resistance training. If you're listening to this, you're within earshot and you're not strength training right now. If you're listening to this when I release it, we're doing a 50% off our 12 Weeks Stronger program. I promise you that more people than not have said, "I started this program. It's the first time I've ever been able to successfully complete all the workouts and stay consistently strength training and did all 24 workouts in 12 weeks." That's all that it takes to really say, "What's next?" Because you will not want to stop when you've experienced the benefits, I promise you. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes. It's 50% off. I never do that because the difference between working with a Flipping 50 program and any other one is, well, twofold. I have 42 years of experience teaching, directly working with clients live, seeing rooms full of bodies, seeing one-on-one, two-on-two, supervising trainers who watch multiple bodies, hundreds and thousands of fitness sessions live and in person. No online trainer today can say that. Unfortunately, there's a lot of online trainers teaching online programs. The only person they're seeing when they film themselves, that's not great for cueing, for cueing and thinking, what will you need to hear while you're hearing me in your ear right now? Sometimes the only way that we can get there is having done hundreds and thousands of reps over years. That's different, but I also coach you. So one time weekly you get to show up and have me live. And if not that, you can still submit a question and we'll answer that live, and you can listen to the replay. So you don't get that with other programs, not from an international fitness professional who trains the trainers and has hundreds and thousands of reps. Training people just like you, who is 61. I've been where you are, whether you're 40, you're 45, you're 50, 55, or you're 60. And I'm about where you're going to be if you're 65 or 70. I've worked with you too, clients all the way up to 95. And no, not my mother. I don't go with family members. But this is really an important time to get started. So I have had so many clients be both successful and fail with GLPs, not because they failed, but because the support they got failed or the GLP did not work for them. So it may not work for you. And some of the— maybe the energy and the weight that you're spending contemplating, should I do this? I want you to think about the fact, what if you did? And it didn't work because there is no guarantee that it will. And the things that we're talking about here that need to be in place, make sure you're doing those first. Think about that. All right. I hope this has been helpful. In the resources, we'll put the Stronger program, we'll put the link to it for health and fitness coaching CEUs. Some of those early programs may not be out by the time you're listening, depending on when that is. But we will put you on a notifications list if you reach out to us to support@flipping50.com. For all those science girls out there, I'll put the references out there for you. I hope this has been helpful, whether you're on it, you're not on it, you've already made up your mind, you're a fitness or you're a health coach, you are still contemplating it. So I hope you heard there is no absolute should you or shouldn't you. It may feel like this is the first step. If I were going to do it, first of all, measuring my muscle, knowing where that is. Also then looking at starting points, and I would always start with a microdose and work my way up. So some of you may not have that much weight to lose, that aggravating 3 to 5 pounds to 10, that may not be helped by a GLP. And then again, it may, but I would try everything else first. I would try using a blood continuous blood glucose monitor, making the right changes with walking after meals, movement throughout the day, trying apple cider vinegar before meals, trying even berberine in the evening after meals. All of those natural things before the GLP because it does come with side effects. I have heard many women using it and mitigating that very easily. However, you don't have to go there. Why not try everything else first? Okay. Again, I hope it's been helpful. Please share it with a friend if it has been, or with a trainer and get their take on it as well. I'll see you on the flip side.